Eight stories read out of thirteen. Four first person pov, four third.
A man getting over the death of his wife; a middle-aged woman anxious to make somebody aware of what she did as a kid; a man with marital problems wonders if he’s gay and why he’s never been honest; a neighbor’s noisy bird flies away, is missed, and comes back; a divorced dad spites his ex-wife, grabs the kids and leaves the state; a resentful young woman starts fires whenever someone pisses her off; a young Russian writer leaves home and stays with a friend in NYC and goes to a free play instead of his friend’s party; a man reflects on his childhood and his uncle who builds a beach and takes it away again.
Almost all of these stories are very heavy into backstory, the "I am the way I am because this, this and this happened when I was a kid" ruminations of either the old or the young who want to blame somebody. I am surprised at the lack of action, the words spent on what would seem to be a rather boring background conversation over wine between a couple in the beginning stages of a relationship. Depth of character is one thing, but even my friends don’t feel the need to tell me all this shit. I’m also not looking for slash and crash action, but something that is the impetus for the thinking, the reflection. It could be a broken finger nail an hour out of the salon, but there should be something that initiates it, no? Some of these just seem purposeless.
The amount of detail within these stories are more suited, I would think, to a novel. And yes, I admit I’m starting to skip through them, no longer obligated to read every repetitious dragged-out sentence.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology